Monday, July 30, 2012

Well, so much for Venice Festival director Alberto Barbera saying just three days ago “I didn’t mention the film. Nobody mentioned the film. It is not in any of our sections.” Because according to Deadline, "The Master" is now set to premiere at the festival in competition on Saturday night September 1st. So unless Paul manages to book a secret screening in Austin (or someplace) prior to this, it looks like this will be the World Premiere for the film, just under 2 weeks before it's scheduled to open in limited release in the U.S. The silver lining for those not attending Venice is that "it might well be part of the Toronto International Film Festival program as well." Great news since I'm already booked for TIFF. How about you, readers? Is anyone going to Venice? Or will you be jealously watching from the sidelines with us? (Thanks again to The Film Stage for the headsup.)

Update 10:08pm: The Wrap confirms that the film will indeed be shown in Toronto. Though as of now, The Weinstein Company and TIFF representatives have declined to comment. An earlier version of the LA Times story on the subject also confirmed the film for TIFF but that's now been corrected to say the film is only "likely" to premiere. They cited the delayed announcement as being due to the 70mm specifications, stating "In booking the film at the high-profile festivals, the Weinstein Co.
faces some technical challenges, namely ensuring that the movie can be
screened on a 70mm projector, since Anderson filmed the movie using
70mm." David Poland tweets that "The Master will play TIFF in 70mm at the Princes of Wales theater in the first 4 days of the festival" and that it will be presented as a "special screening."

Justin C. Chang from Variety also tweeted to us in regards to the Venice confusion saying, "A Venice fest source had said last week the film was in, but as a late addition, so we held off. Sorry for the confusion." Whether the film was held off initial releases for technical reasons (surely they would've known by now whether Venice or TIFF could present the film in 70mm) to generate excitement (it has been exciting, hasn't it?) or perhaps a difference of opinion behind-the-scenes on exactly how the film should debut, we're not sure yet. But neither TIFF, Venice nor The Weinstein Company have confirmed either of the aforementioned screenings yet, so it appears the cat may be out of the bag for any planned surprises.

FYI, we're a lot more active on Twitter than Facebook so if you like your news up-to-the-moment, that's where you want to be.

Friday, July 27, 2012

The Weinstein Company is shuffling its awards-season deck, moving up Paul Thomas Anderson's Scientology-tinged religious drama "The Master" to Sept. 14 and pushing back Andrew Dominik's Brad Pitt starrer "Killing Them Softly" to Oct. 19.

"The Master" will now open in limited release against Disney's animated family pic "Finding Nemo 3D," Screen Gems' action horror sequel "Resident Evil: Retribution," Summit's teen drama "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" and IFC Films' collegiate dramedy "Liberal Arts." Anderson's film will then expand to additional cities beginning Sept. 21, the day "Killing Them Softly" was originally skedded to open.

"The Master" figures to be a factor this awards season, with stars Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman expected to be major contenders for acting prizes, not to mention writer-director Anderson, who received multiple noms for his last pic, "There Will Be Blood."

As each of the lineups have been announced for Cannes, TIFF and Venice, cinephiles have found themselves disappointed that "The Master" has yet to show up anywhere. We ran down the odds back in March using nothing but our own intuition but recently some more information has come to light which seems to change the game a bit.

Commenter Blake pointed us to an interview with Alamo Drafthouse owner/Fantastic Fest programmer Tim League from back in 2008. The scrappy genre festival had managed to land "There Will Be Blood" when none of the prestigious festivals had. So how'd he do it? League explained,

"[Paul Thomas Anderson] doesn’t like to do traditional festivals and I assured him that if he
came here he would be able to enjoy the movie; it would be with fans;
and it wouldn’t be paparazzi. And it wasn’t. So he had a great time. But it wasn’t through the studio. He actually didn’t tell the studio until the day before."

We had figured this low-key approach might've been a one-off for 'Blood,' since his previous films had all done the festival circuit -- screening all over the place before their release dates -- but perhaps not. Personally we'd love to see the film with the Austin crowd, as opposed to say, a New York Film Festival one. League was coy with us when confronted with the evidence, tweeting "I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of contents of said blue cans," but signs do seem to point to a Fantastic Fest screening, whether exclusive or otherwise.

How Paul's strategy will fit in with The Weinstein Co.'s festival-centric Oscar campaigning is anybody's guess. But it will be very interesting to watch. As a Facebook commenter said, "I love the fact that P.T. is
blowin' off these corporate schmooze fests. He marches to his own
drummer. He will screen his movie when and where he wants." Well put, sir. Keep in mind this is just a little speculating on our part and it's still possible the film could show up at any one of the aforementioned festivals (as well as Telluride or NYFF) as a surprise or scheduled screening. We'll just have to wait and see.

FYI, we're a lot more active on Twitter than Facebook so if you like your news up-to-the-moment, that's where you want to be.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Over the last two days the lineups for Toronto and Venice Film Festival's have been unveiled and it looks like neither one managed to score "The Master." Though TIFF seemed like a long shot in recent days, Venice came as more of a shock. We knew that the festival was chasing the film along with the new efforts from Terrence Malick and Brian DePalma, and while it looks like they got their other two choices, PTA's latest is the whale they just couldn't catch. Curiously (and probably frustratingly for those attending) Variety had initially announced "The Master" as being part of the lineup only to retract that statement shortly afterwards. (via @ThePlaylist) Anybody know what happened there? Please pass it along.

Update 8/27: Festival director Alberto Barbera says the film will not play the festival. “I didn’t mention the film. Nobody mentioned the film. It is not in any of our sections.” (via @manuyanezm)

Update 10:40am: A commenter informs us that Venice Festival Director "Alberto Barbera said at the press conference there is one more movie in competition that will be announced in the next few days." So it's still possible "The Master" could bet that film. Standby for heart-attack.

And then there were two. Back in March we ran down the odds on which festivals we thought were most likely to land the film and at the time gave the New York Film Festival the best odds while calling Fantastic Fest a long shot. Obviously some new information has come to light which seems to tip the scales in the other direction. Though it is possible, it doesn't seem likely that the film would play at both fests. (It should be noted that "Melancholia" did this last year but had also played at Cannes, TIFF, opened in France and premiered on VOD by that time too.) Because NYFF is so late in the year, it's really the last major festival and the selection is usually culled from Cannes favorites and a few repeats from Venice/TIFF with a few high profile premieres sprinkled in.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Today we have a big round-up of news for you. So if you were busy watching the trailer all weekend as we were, you may have missed a few exciting (if less seismic) developments. First off, in my other life over at The Playlist, I posted a somewhat lengthy trailer breakdown for those who might not be as up on the film as Cigs & Vines readers. I wanted to give a big thank you to our commenters (Tyler, anonymous, etc.) for all their help fleshing out the article. If you havent' read it yet, head on over and take a look and if there's anything else I left out, please let me know kindly in the comments.

Financier/patron saint of cinema Megan Ellison tweeted the following heartfelt thank you to Paul but since he doesn't have Twitter, we'll repost it here in hopes that it gets back to him.

Paul Thomas Anderson and The Master have changed my life in such a deeply profound way forever that all I can really say is, thank you.

Kirsten Dunst, who's dying to get into a PTA movie, also tweeted, "I'd give Joaquin Phoenix an oscar based on the trailer for "The Master."" to which Ellison responded "and you wouldn't be wrong to." A few other famous friends expressed their admiration of the trailer over the weekend as well including "LOST" co-creator Damon Lindelof ("I just watched THE MASTER trailer and I think it made me crazy.") and "Brick" writer/director Rian Johnson ("Dude I just watched THE MASTER trailer like 138 times in a row dude dude DUDE")

In other news, we recently heard whispers that a couple weeks ago Paul was in Austin testing the sound for "The Master"
at the Alamo Drafthouse. Our sources say he had a soundboard
set up testing levels and at the top of this post there's a picture (via Tumblr) to prove it. You can see Paul standing alongside his composer Jonny Greenwood, Alamo Drafthouse owner Tim League and a mysterious blue canister that may or may not contain the greatest film of 2012. Rumors are flying of a possible Fantastic Fest premiere as you'll remember "There Will Be Blood" had a secret screening/premiere there back in 2007.

Update 7/23: A commenter with the inside track says, "It was more than just sound tests. The finished film was screened for
League weeks ago. It is already booked to play Fantastic Fest. Take that
to the bank." Fantastic Fest runs September 20-27.

Probably fairly obvious to anyone who has seen Paul's previous films but "The Master" has also been rated R. The naughty bits are for "sexual content, graphic nudity and language" according to Box Office Mojo (via @angel_glands). This also means that the film has been completed and is (in theory) ready to be screened...

Monday, July 16, 2012

Over the weekend, The Playlist came across upon an Italian newspaper called La Repubblica who ran down a preview of the Venice Film Festival (August 29-September 8) festival which included several notable titles like the new Terrence Malick film "To The Wonder," "A Place Beyond The Pines" and most notably "The Master." We pegged the fest back in March as a possibility for a premiere and heard as recently as May that they were actively pursuing the film. While nothing is confirmed yet (the lineup isn't announced officially until July 26) it does seem like it's a strong possibility. Whether the film will make a showing at TIFF or NYFF is still unknown as well but those should also firm up their selections in the next month or so.

Update: On the latest episode of "The Treatment with Elvis Mitchell" podcast, Harvey Weinstein stopped by to promote his latest box office smash, the French production "The Intouchables" and towards the end of the episode got into some other films he's got on tap for later this year which led to "The Master." (via xixax)

Thursday, July 12, 2012

We know that PTA already has hisa fair amount of fans across the industry -- Filmmaker John Milius recently expressed his admiration -- and today we can add another name to that list: Aaron Paul. The actor is probably best known for playing Jesse Pinkman on AMC's "Breaking Bad," which is currently making a strong case for being the best show on TV. In a recent interview with GQ to promote the upcoming fifth season, the Emmy winning actor dropped the following plea.

GQ: What other directors [do you admire]?
Aaron Paul: Rian Johnson's fresh in mind. He's just so brilliant and
such an incredible writer. Or speaking of writer-slash-directors: Paul
Thomas Anderson.

GQ: Yeah, wow. I think he's the best there is.
Aaron Paul: He's completely fucking unbelievable. I don't understand how he does it.

GQ: What's the plan after Breaking Bad wraps?
Aaron Paul: Not an idea. Maybe start accosting Paul Thomas Anderson.
Seriously: turn this interview into a love letter to Paul Thomas
Anderson, and kind of beg him to put me in a film. I don't care if it's
as an extra, I'll do whatever.

Side note/name drop: I met Mr. Paul at the Season 3 premiere party for "Breaking Bad" in NYC and (in addition to being an Emmy winning actor), he was an incredibly nice dude! So there you have it, we've done our part. If you weren't already aware the 5th Season of 'Breaking Bad" premieres this Sunday on AMC and judging by the first two episodes, it's going to be cra-mazing.

Just met Paul Dano at a screening for Ruby Sparks. Said his "buddy" PTA has screened him a few bits from The Master. [He said] "PTA's the master", then went on a tangent about how The Girl Next Door taught kids how to masturbate.

So it appears that much of the inner circle has been privy to quite a bit of the film. Now if we could just find our invite...

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

A while back we heard that Tom Cruise (who has remained friends with PTA since "Magnolia") had been shown "The Master" and that he "had issues" with it. Yesterday, in light of his recent divorce, the NY Daily News did some digging (or speculating) by intimating that the Church of Scientology was unhappy with certain aspects of the film.

A source familiar with Paul Thomas Anderson ’s film about the founder
of a Scientology-like religious movement tells us officials of the
controversial church group “hit the roof” when they learned — presumably
through Cruise — that the movie contains a scene which suggests the
belief system was little more than a product of the leader’s fertile
imagination.

According to our insider, one scene that didn’t sit well with Cruise
takes place on a patio where Joaquin Phoenix, who plays Freddie Sutton,
a troubled drifter who becomes Dodd’s right-hand disciple, watches Dodd
pontificate about the religion he has created.

During the scene, the source says, another character close to the
founder turns to Phoenix and says of Dodd, “You know he’s making it up
as he goes along.”
Referring to the actual Church of Scientology, our source says, “Tom
Cruise’s people are grumbling about this line — amongst others — but
Anderson is not taking it out.”

Cruise’s spokeswoman declined to comment on this story. Scientology
spokeswoman Karin Pouw responded: “No one in the church has seen the
film, and we have no comment. ”

Given the media circus surrounding the TomKat divorce right now it's hard to tell the fact from fiction but it certainly wouldn't surprise us.

Thursday, July 05, 2012

If you've ever wondered if Paul Thomas Anderson can/cannot open a gate, the wait ends today: Our dear friends The AV Club sent out Kyle Ryan to interview David Williams, manager of Marfa's Mcguire Ranch who was heavily involved with the filming of There Will Be Blood and has alot of new/interesting things to share with you. In Kyle's words:

In charge of all of it was David Williams, McGuire Ranch manager and the production’s go-to guy for pretty much everything. Need to hose down the roads so they’re passable? Talk to David. Need supplies? Talk to David. Need to cast another part in the film? Hey, David can do it. (Williams appeared in several scenes opposite Daniel Day-Lewis.) Even after production wrapped, his There Will Be Blood duties continued: Once the film came out and quickly earned awards-season buzz, Williams found himself answering questions from reporters and frequently taking them on tours of shooting locations around the ranch. It happens less frequently now, but here it is, six years later, and he’s still doing it.

You can read the full write-up which has a good chunk of extra anecdotes about production. There, we distracted you for another 24 hours while we wait patiently for TMZ to stop posting spoilers via TomKat divorce details the Master.